Opinion

Every single year, I try to create New Year’s Resolutions, but I find that my motivation dwindles away and I give up less than a month in. How do I keep up my New Year’s Resolutions?

Sincerely,

Broken Bob

Able Aminah: New Year’s resolutions can be hard! That’s why most people give up their resolutions after the first week or so. Think about why you’re keeping your resolution in the first place. People tend to dive straight into their resolutions which often results in them giving up very soon. Try easing your way in and make modifications to your resolutions so that your results are actually attainable. The hardest part is getting into the habit so you must be diligent in your work ethic. If you have goals like working out more or getting better grades, then the best way to achieve it is by creating a schedule to organize all of your activities. It won’t be easy at first but if you stick to it, you’ll soon see results. Remember: you KHAN do it!

Effective Elise: Ahhhh, New Year’s resolutions: the promise that you make to better yourselves, but you never follow through with it. Even though it’s pretty clear that we won’t actually complete our resolutions, it’s useful to just make them anyway. I find it better to have the intention of improving oneself by creating goals than just giving up on them. At least you’re trying, right? Now, if you want to continue with the real deal by applying your resolutions to your life, here are some (unqualified) tips. Write your resolution down somewhere! Maybe place a small list on your work table, so it sits there reminding (or haunting) you every day you sit down to get to work. Also make sure you feel motivated because if you really don’t want to do it, don’t!

Laidback Lindsey: Why are you even considering this? We all know you want to lose some of that body pudge (Susan) or do that cool skate trick (Greg) but guess what? No one cares. Don’t come up to me with that “I’m doing this for me and me only” excuse, Bob because we all know you’re doing it for Cindy. I mean if you actually think you can keep it up then good for you. I sure can’t relate. The most simple, smart-alec response is to just do it and follow through. You can’t make a cheat sheet to remind yourself or daily reminders because if you really wanted to do it, you wouldn’t need to push yourself so hard. It’s the new year, why would you want to start off stressed about it anyway? Just chill and be glad that you survived another year of whatever this is. The only thing you need to worry about is finals and how the death of net neutrality will affect you.

Judgy John: From my personal experiences, I always fail my New Year’s resolution. The final verdict: don’t do it. Let’s be real here, you’re going to have so much motivation in the beginning. Then, it all dies down. Your “cheat days” become every day in your diet, and you give up going to the gym. It takes a lot of time and effort for a New Year’s resolution, and honestly, you can be doing so much more. Take the new year to explore new things rather than to focus on that one goal. Go on a hike, explore the streets of Los Angeles, try the world’s spiciest curry: the possibilities are endless. Question the world and why natural disasters happen. You have so much more things to do rather than focus on one goal.

The zero tolerance policy for late work is commonly found in the curriculum at Fountain Valley High School. Usually established in the teacher’s syllabus at the beginning of the school year, this rule has managed to create many dilemmas for students throughout the course of the class.

Rules are implemented for a reason, but it is best to keep them progressive. If the zero tolerance for late work policy produces more stress on students, then it is best to tackle the situation at hand: allowing students to complete the assignment with a point penalty.

When zero credit is given to late work, students are often compelled to hastily pull something together before the deadline or may even result to not completing the assignment at all. Students will then miss the opportunity to fully understand the material they were taught in class because they did not feel the need to complete the given assignment.

There are numerous obstacles that could infringe on a due date. Many students work jobs outside of school or participate in school activities such as sports and clubs. Sometimes, health or urgent family matters may also be a reason. Teachers should be understanding of a student’s schedule, and should create a learning environment that encourages students to turn in their best work. With so much influence on the youth, teachers should motivate their students to achieve their full potential—not the bare minimum.

Although allowing partial credit may come with cons, its benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Giving students the opportunity to get credit for late work allows them to take more time if they need to understand the learning material at hand.

Benefits of zero credit

By Aminah Khan, Staff Writer and Photographer

Most student see zero credit as a bad thing. The thought of a teacher taking away all of the points for an assignment may seem like a terrible idea at first. However, zero credit may be the best solution to assure that students are completing their homework and cutting back on procrastination habits.

The “credit or no credit” system is a great way to keep students on top of all of their assignments because I often find myself waiting up until the last minute to complete assignments. The fact that students know that they can still receive partial credit makes them unmotivated to do assignments because they know that if they turn in an assignment late, the consequences are not that harsh.

However in the real world, this is not the case. Deadlines are a lot more important and students need to get into the habit of completing assignments on time. A genuine excuse for not completing an assignment should be acceptable and credit should be given, but students need to understand that consequences they will earn in the real world will be worse.

If a student submits work late and receives zero credit for the assignment, they will realize how damaging a zero can be for their grade. In turn, they will work more diligently to complete all of their assignments on time. This means that they will be less likely to leave projects and submissions until the last moment because of the fear of receiving a zero for late submission.

Therefore, the zero credit policy not only prepares students to be better off in the real world, it also reduces procrastination habits among students.

The sleepy town River City wakes up with the help of Harold Hill, a traveling con man. He has everything set up from his backstory to when he plans to make a run for it. That is until he meets librarian Marian Paroo. She has suspicions towards Harold, but he begins to generate feelings for her, prompting him to make a tough decision about leaving.

With a confident stride and a joyful demeanor, Harold Hill, played by Ethan Peterson (‘18), jumps around from kid to kid easily convincing them to purchase a musical instrument and uniform to create a band.

Marian Paroo, played by Shannon Lopez (‘18), had evident facial expressions and clear movements making sure to bring the spotlight to herself whenever she went into the scenes. As the female lead of the story, she appears throughout the play as the music teacher whom Harold Hill falls in love with.

Alyssa Kammerer took the stage by storm as she eloquently portrayed Marian in The Music Man. She captured the dual aspects of Marian’s character as an intelligent independent while showcasing the softer sides of her character. She danced through “Marian the Librarian” and “Shipoopi” with ease and grace. She brought in the more realistic aspects of her dancing, by keeping in touch with how her character would dance. She brought more life into the stage, it was difficult to imagine anybody else mimicking her embodiment of Marian. She knew what she was doing, and she knew she was doing it right. Not only did Alyssa excel in the dancing portions of the musical, her singing was on par and had the captivating effect that made many tear up. It was extremely delightful, to listen to her sing in “Goodnight my someone.”

Beyond that, “Till there was you” was what left the audience in goosebumps, astounded by the amount of talent Kammerer exuded throughout the whole show. There wasn’t a moment when she was on stage, that was dull or clichè. She a had a spark of life in every second of her performance, from being annoyed and distant to Harold Hill, to succumbing to her daydreams of her white knight. She was entertaining without being cheap with her decisions in her character. She didn’t feed off the audience, rather she was fully engaged with what was going on stage, never losing her focus.It was obvious that Kammerer had spent a lot time practicing and rehearsing, to know every step of her journey. It’s easily seen that dedicated herself solely to this production.

Mr. and Mrs. Shinn, acted by Michael Frankeny (‘17) and Zoe Rios (‘17), had dramatic body motions that immediately catched people’s attentions; sometimes even surprising them with their range of contrasting emotions they were able to put forth.

The rhythmic song-like conversations between the characters added a humorous and exciting touch to the plot throughout the whole play, constantly engaging the audience and sticking to the audience’s head even after the three-hour musical is over. The repeated lines and quirky back-and-forth phrases allow audience to easily understand the plotline and catch onto the story at any point.

Overall, the acting was truly amazing with all its facial gestures, choreography, pauses and the emotions that it conveyed.

The dancing, choreographed by Catie Beck, had simplistic but clean moves that added to the excitement of the singing and acting.

The stage compositions of the actors were constantly on-the-point with the often-symmetrical theme present everywhere, making clear the focus of the scenes and presenting all its components very well. There were also several scenes where two sides had a conversation with each other in opposite sides of the stage, usually a male group and a female group, which moved the attention of the crowd and kept the movement going even during long dialogues that took place.

Marian and Harold confess their love to one another in one of the scenes of the play. Photo by Aminah Khan

The musical aspect of the Music Man, directed by Matt Matthews, was phenomenal. The piano, played by Daniel Ramos, entered at just the right moment creating the perfect atmosphere to match with the dialogue. However, at times the music drowned out the actors and actresses’ voices causing difficulty to understand.

All the costumes done by Amy Pham (‘19), Emma Dobrin (‘18) and Mary Kim (‘17) showed true professionalism with clean, well thought-out costumes that reflected upon the era of the musical. From a whole ensemble with an orange boa scarf, skirt and top paired with a floppy hat decorated with colorful flowers on top to a simple red plaid suit and a boater hat, the diverse costumes that were prepared were never plain to the eye.

A well-rounded musical with outstanding performers bringing the energetic story to life with all its fun and laughter.